Posted on 08/31/2022 6:07:17 AM PDT by CodeToad
While in service, the USS Texas sailed through some of the globe’s most treacherous waters.
The Texas is one of only eight ships to serve in both world wars. Its crew supported American troops on D-Day and on Iwo Jima. After being decommissioned, the Texas became a floating museum, docked beside the old San Jacinto Battleground near Houston.
On Wednesday, the Texas will once again set out into open waters when a group of tugboats tows it to a dry dock in Galveston, where the ship will undergo extensive repairs on its hull as part of a long-term plan to preserve the vessel. The journey will be live-streamed starting about 3 a.m.
Bruce Bramlett, chief operating officer for the Battleship Texas Foundation, spoke to Texas Standard about moving the Texas and the ship’s future.
(Excerpt) Read more at kut.org ...
I wonder if they will resurrect the overnight program for Boy Scouts. My son experienced it about ten years ago, we both had a great time.
And the Alabama and North Carolina. But nothing from the ‘dreadnaught’ era.
Yeah, a couple of things there. The first thing I would tell your listeners is the state of Texas owns a battleship Texas. They always will. They should. It’s the right place for it to be. But they made the decision when we pulled it out of San Jacinto State Park. They’re looking for a more favorable location where it’s more visible, it gets more visitors. And I love the park – I’ve been coming in and out of here, you know, most of my life; it’s beautiful. But the ship’s history doesn’t have anything to do with San Jacinto. We’re going to take our history with us. It was made thousands of miles from here, and it’ll go wherever the ship goes.
Where will it end up? Still in negotiations ... $$$.
We’ve been in long-term conversations with Beaumont, Baytown and Galveston about the new home. Those negotiations continue. And so it’s really the final piece of the puzzle. You know, you do the funding. You do the “how do we move it? Where are we going to get a dock?”
And it looks like it will be in a dry dock for repairs.
Even the dock is a story. It was in the Bahamas, had to be repaired. It spent eight days being towed to Galveston. But they’re doing final prep. We’re doing final prep. And we’re going to meet up tomorrow afternoon.
My late uncle was a D-Day vet, first wave at Omaha beach. In the 1970’s I was reading a book on the history of the US Navy in WWII. He was visiting and sitting next to me on the couch and a picture of the Texas at D-Day was in the book and he glanced over and said what are you reading and then said I know that ship. He said that is the Texas, she was at D-Day, I went by her in a landing craft and she was close at one point dueling with German shore batteries. Pretty cool looking back on that discussion.
Yes, relative.
I have a picture of our son on one of the Bofors mounts before the last move and repair in ‘88. He is 40 now.
Time and chance happen to us all if we live long enough.
“USS Iowa and Missouri still survive.” [Bonemaker, post 39]
“And the Alabama and North Carolina. But nothing from the ‘dreadnaught’ era.” [TalonDJ, post 42]
All four Iowa class battleships are still around, serving as museum ships: USS Iowa at Los Angeles; USS New Jersey at Camden; USS Missouri at Pearl Harbor; USS Wisconsin at Norfolk.
USS Alabama is at Mobile, USS Massachusetts is at Fall River. Not as big as the Iowa class, but imposing.
If I got the Lotto at 300 million, could I fix up the Texas enough to fire it up and go where I want?
And maybe some fellow ‘sailors’ would want to fix up the armament.
The Texas should be way more impressive than Bezos Yacht.
Tks!😃
That she’s being moved at all is pretty darn impressive. The people doing it obviously know what they’re doing. A ping for later.
Iowa and Missouri are not dreadnought battleships.
Most of the battleships at D-Day engaged shore batteries - but Texas almost went ashore with the troops.
At one point, troops were pinned down on Omaha Beach and were unable to get off the shingle. Several destroyers closed in to the beach to be able to fire their 5”/38 guns in direct line of sight support for the infantry, so close that they almost grounded. In an unprecedented move, Texas followed the destroyers in. She closed from her firing station 12,000 yards off the nominal shore to within 3000 yards of the water’s edge, inside point blank range even for the battleship’s antiaircraft guns, with only inches of water under her keel. Texas then went to maximum rate fire with pretty much everything she had, directly firing on machine gun emplacements, sniper positions, minefields, individual enemy soldiers, suspicious trees and even bushes - and not incidentally totally clearing western exit D-1 on Omaha to give the troops an exit by hitting everything that even looked like it might be a problem with a 14” shell.
Some historians note that without Battleship Texas, Omaha might have been a failed landing, or at least the butcher’s bill would have been much, much higher. Many of the prepared German anti-infantry defensive positions infantry were actually reasonably resistant to 5” fire - but not against 14” fire, delivered inside point blank range and with immediate follow up as fast as the crew could load them.
Thank you for the Texas ping!
Love it!
“all thought it could never be moved again.”
They put her in place near the San Jac monument then pumped tons of sand under her to secure her and semi-flooded tanks onboard. To move her then all they have to do is to pump out the sand and empty the tanks so that she would float again.
Still a fine example of a WW2-era battleship.
...But it’s tooth-to-tail ration compares favorably to modern warships, IMHO.
Dreadnought is an archaic term. I think in terms of battleships.
I think it was more about metal fatigue and rust.
Not Corpus. She was taken to Todd’s shipyard in Galveston in ‘89.
Boy I got my dates all wrong, old age and bourbon.
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